Aware that the Nike Air Jordan trainers worn by the basketball star Michael Jordan
are a fetish item around the world, Brian Jungen, a young British
Columbian of partly Northwest Coast Indian descent, has cleverly
refashioned these trophy sneakers into ceremonial masks that strikingly
suggest the artifacts produced by Northwest Coast tribes.

He
wastes no scrap, making some parts into birdlike beaks, arranging
others to form yawning apertures, working still others into headdresses
and so on, to brilliant effect. The masks might be seen as a sardonic
view of the cultural takeover and commercialization of aboriginal art
so widespread in Canada and the United States, and also as a comment on
the need for fetishes - in this case, the exalted Nike - that is every
bit as strong in modern societies as in so-called primitive ones.

Another example of Mr. Jungen's skill at making mundanities into art is
his elegant transformation of banal white plastic modular chairs into
three full-size whale skeletons. These float benignly above the
viewer's head, like specimens in a natural history museum. He has said
that in making the first one, "Shapeshifter" (2000), he wanted to see
if a reproduction of an object from the natural world could be formed
from something completely inorganic. He succeeded wildly, to the point
at which a viewer might ponder what miracles could be wrought by nature
if it had modular chairs to work with.

Several less awesome
objects continue Mr. Jungen's interest in tweaking what he calls
traditional forms by means of new materials, techniques and ideas, in
the process attacking cultural clichés. Unfortunately, the gallery's
space doesn't really allow for a more extensive account of his doings,
especially past projects having to do with architecture. But if it's
hard to get the full scope of his societal investigations, you come
away with a sense of a wizardly craftsman whose skills are equal to his
vision. GRACE GLUECK